Houston Rockets Should Let Aaron Brooks Walk This Off-Season

By Cody Williams

Brett Davis – USA Today Sports Images

The Houston Rocketsare a young team that everyone around the NBAwill be keeping their eye on over the next few years. They acquired James Harden before this past season and it dramatically altered the franchise. They went on to make the NBA Playoffs and force their series with the Oklahoma City Thunder to go to six games.

However, this isn’t the end result for the Rockets. They are still improving and developing their young core of players, they still need to add depth to their bench, and they still have a good deal of room regarding the salary cap to work with this summer. Their plan is seemingly to add another big piece through free agency. Given that, they should not pick up Aaron Brooks’ option.

Brooks played just seven regular season this season for the Rockets and his stats over that time were essentially inconsequential. He played just 5.4 minutes per game over those contests, which is hardly enough playing time to be able to produce anything meaningful. However, that changed in the postseason with Jeremy Lin’s injury that kept him out for two games and limited him.

In the playoffs Brooks appeared in all six games and his minutes increased to 11.2 per game. He struggled in those minutes, though, averaging five points and 1.8 assists per game while shooting a paltry 38.2 percent from the field and an atrocious 11.1 percent from three. He was basically just another body for the Rockets to put on the floor.

Brooks has a team option for $2.5 million next season, an amount of money that he wasn’t even close to being worth this past season. Letting Brooks walk would free up more cap-room and would allow the Rockets more flexibility to sign a big free agent this off-season. Because of that, the Rockets shouldn’t think twice about not picking up his option.